


The Process of Becoming

by SneakAttack29 (SurreptitiousFox245)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Changelings, Character Development, Death, Drabbles, Family, Gen, Genasi, Grief/Mourning, I'll add more of these as I write more, Literally these are all original characters, Multi, Original Character Death(s), Other, Spies & Secret Agents, Suspense, Tabaxi, Tal'Dorei (Critical Role), There's a TPK narration so there's death, These are just oneshots of my D&D groups and character concept stuff, Wildemount (Critical Role), You really don't have to read if you don't want to but I thought they'd be fun, all the death, lots of death, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SurreptitiousFox245/pseuds/SneakAttack29
Summary: "Life is a lively process of becoming." -Douglas MacArthur---Oneshots, drabbles, and short one chapter character studies from various D&D games I'm in or have previously been in. Content ranges from narrations of character deaths, to happy family moments, to angst, to the narration of a TPK, so the topics can get pretty grim. Some are set in Exandria from Critical Role, others in homebrew universes. Basically a lot of these were scenes we experienced in-game that I could not let go, so I decided to write them. I figured I'd post them instead of letting them sit on my hard drive gathering digital dust, so here we are.





	1. Permanence (Chrysopal)

**Author's Note:**

> Death holds a permanence that cannot be denied, and Chrys cannot accept that.  
> \---  
> Felix Errata, the Lucky Mistakes, a newly formed mercenary group. Several days into their adventure, they're asked by the sister of a party member to check out an ankheg infestation in the tunnels under Westruun with disastrous results.
> 
> AKA: Three weeks into this new campaign with mostly strangers, we had a character death and it was RP'd so well, I had to write it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death holds a permanence that cannot be denied, and Chrys cannot accept that.  
> \---  
> Felix Errata, the Lucky Mistakes, a newly formed mercenary group. Several days into their adventure, they're asked by the sister of a party member to check out an ankheg infestation in the tunnels under Westruun with disastrous results.
> 
> AKA: Three weeks into this new campaign with mostly strangers, we had a character death and it was RP'd so well, I had to write it down.

“ _So, why’d you have to go?_

_Is there something I could say to make you turn around?_

_‘Cause nights like these I wish I'd said don’t go._ ”

-Mayday Parade, “Champagne’s For Celebrating (I’ll Have A Martini)”

* * *

**Chrysopal Argyris doesn’t believe it at first.** From around the ankheg queen, she barely sees the lumbering body fall, but the thud is deafening to her ears. Is it deafening to the others? She doesn’t know. Does she want to know? Well, she isn’t sure about the answer to that, either.

The sword in her hand almost falls to the ground, memories of a smaller body crumpled much the same way save in a cage flash in her eyes, all before adrenaline and pure, unadulterated _rage_ she hasn’t felt in just over a year pushes the image aside. Not now. Not yet. _Hers_. Hers, hers, hers, hers, _hers_ , and this insect took him. One of hers. That’s two of hers gone, now, her fault. The potion in the pouch at her belt burns a hole through her conscience. The potion she decided not to use.

_Her fault_. Gods _damn it_. Damn it all. Damn her. Damn them, damn the gods. Damn everyone and everything and, especially, _damn this fucking ankheg._

Maybe it’s a good thing that Emelia reacts first and gets the killing blow immediately after Vymak falls. The genasi can’t be positive what she would have done to the thing, but Chrys knows it wouldn’t have been pretty. Rage on her has never fit well, and it’s definitely never been subtle. Those raiders a year ago laying in pieces on the grassy floor of a once-sacred clearing, the bloodied scar left on Urlsen’s smug and sneering face, her own knuckles torn to shreds from the cave wall and shoddy grave she dug days later in desperation, despair, and disquiet. Even earlier, robed students motionless on the ground amidst flames and carnage. At least back then, she’d been helpless. Or that’s what everyone kept and continues to keep telling her, but how true is it really? There’s always a way to help. Such _lies_ those reassurances had been, she thinks! What lies those will be _now_.

It’s Sifr’s tone that breaks her a little more when she rounds the giant insect queen to see the large, animated construct cradling their fallen goliath as if he is a child clutching a favorite toy. The warlock’s eyes turn innocently—if a tad desperate—to the kenku cleric staring dumbfounded at the sight of their comrade limp and motionless and _gone_ in Sifr’s armored grip. “Heal him. You can heal him, Footsteps, right? Emelia, you two can heal him?”

The human woman standing nearby shakes her head slowly. “I…I don’t have that kind of…I don’t have that kind of magic, bud.” Her voice cracks in shock the rest of them feel, as if she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing. Chrys can sympathize. 

Sifr doesn’t understand this sort of thing, she remembers from the, at the time, amusing conversations between him, Footsteps, herself, and Lucus. The warforged’s head tilt is innocuous, childlike, even though Chrys has a sneaking suspicion that Sifr is far from young. Naïve, perhaps. But in this instance, all the genasi sees is a child, and it brings back other memories, other hurts, more pain, and she just _can’t_ . Stone scrapes her knees a little when she falls to them, the earth she is a part of grounding her to the moment instead of the past. There’s that at least. Even if she doesn’t particularly want to be _here_ , it’s better than _then_.

“Put him down,” Footsteps-in-Swamp squawks, the normally even tone warbling and feathers flying in panic as he scrambles to kneel at the bloodhunter’s head once it touches the cavern floor. He starts pleading with his god (Wee Jas if Chrys remembers correctly, a goddess of death who at one point brought Footsteps back from the dead), and the monk can’t stay where she is. She can’t watch.

Several steps behind her, she sees Lucus frozen. The other monk takes these things roughly, no better than she does. He’d been throwing around cleric spells earlier, along with magic not entirely human, the offhanded observation flits through her head. Aasimar, she thinks—but what does the man’s race, possible or otherwise, matter right now? It doesn’t. What matters is the fact that he is frozen, pale, trembling a bit and staring at Footsteps and Sifr surrounding Vymak’s body as if reliving a nightmare. Perhaps he is, she thinks. Much like her, and she can’t just leave him like that. Emelia looks to be in about as much shock as the rest of them. The human paladin is fixated on the ritual or prayer or plea Footsteps is attempting, so Chrys takes it upon herself. They’re _hers_ , after all. Lucus is one of hers, and she takes care of her own. Damn anything that tries to take them from her, including trauma and memories and her own problems can _wait_ , that’s not important right now.

So, prying herself onto unsteady feet, she shambles over to the blond and stands next to him quietly. Amber eyes watch the scene with him, though she’s unfocused. Focusing makes it more real. How can this be real? It can’t be. Why is it real? It can’t be. It is. But it _can’t be_. When she wants something, it’s hers, and Vymak was _hers_. She wants him back. The goliath left thinking they all hated him—the last interaction Chrys had with him before proceeding to ignore him after the Mephistopheles incident was _hitting him in the face_. It was out of disappointment in his recklessness ( _because she cares_ ), but he doesn’t— _hadn’t_ , she shakily reminds—known that. He’ll _never_ know that.

All because of the ankheg. She turns a glare to the lifeless shell, daggers all but shooting out of her eyes. Her muscles twinge with the overwhelming urge to go over to the thing and _rip it apart with her bare hands, tear into it, stab it, carve its h—_

Mumbling hits her ears from next to her, stops her movements, stops the acrimony bubbling just under the surface (and truly, what would mutilating a corpse solve? It and Vymak are already gone, right?). It deflates her uncharacteristic thirst for vengeance before she can do something with it that she’d probably regret later. Chrys’ attention turns instead to the human (aasimar?) next to her, to his stricken face, to the words he’s saying. They’re familiar. They’re _her own_ , and she mutters an assurance back, unsure how to help. What would Mother have done? She’s not sure, and the monk hesitantly places an arm around her friend and rests her head on his shoulder, hoping that her attempt at a hug does…something.

She hears a memory of Mnemosyne and Alexei smugly chorusing a frequent phrase in their house, “ _Big Sister, you’re horrible with people._ ” They aren’t wrong. Chrys feels relieved when she sees Lucus nod in acknowledgement of her attempt to show he’s not alone. At showing that she’s in a similar boat. Well, not boat. Never boat. Fuck boats because boats mean water and fuck water, most of all.

Wait, that’s not relevant. No, just her mind trying to bring her away from now, and she can’t be away from now. The grip she has on Lucus’ arm tightens a fraction, focusing on the presence of someone else to try and keep her out of her own mind. It’s not where she needs to be right…

“No… _NO!_ ” The gut-wrenching, grief-wracked scream causes Chrys to jump and Lucus to flinch, not expecting such an echoing sound of _agony_ to come from the usually even-toned Sifr knelt across the cavern. Wide-eyed, the genasi thinks that if Sifr could cry, he would be, and it’s unnerving. It solidifies everything, though. The tears streaking down Footsteps’ face solidifies loss. Emelia’s ashen complexion and the resignation apparent in the lines of her face solidifies that Vymak is _gone_ , and…and…Chrys doesn’t know.

Does she want to know? She’s unsure. Ignorance is bliss, and _Melora’s grace_ if she doesn’t wish for ignorance in abundance.

Footsteps walks towards her and Lucus, she closes her eyes, not ready to hear what he has to say. What she already knows. She doesn’t remember how they leave the caverns, really. She just knows that she sticks with Lucus, Footsteps, and Emelia as they move out of the city to build Vymak a funeral pyre. She says something to Sifr that angers him, she can’t remember what. About the academy, probably, but she can’t help it. Nicodemos is in the city, probably at said academy. Once on the surface, she has this undying urge to see family. Nico always understands, the bright light of the Argyris, optimistic and caring even in the worst of times when she shuts down and can’t be the caretaker anymore. She needs Nico. The _group_ needs Nico.

Well, they need Vymak. But that’s not possible, so Nico will have to do.

Chrys finally lets go of Lucus when he pulls away to go back into the city, off in the direction of his home. Footsteps follows, so she lets him walk off, content in the fact that he won’t be entirely alone. Emelia stays with Sifr at the pyre, but Chrys can’t stay. She can’t look into the flames any longer, or she’ll go mad. Maybe she already has. Maybe going mad would be kinder than acknowledging what happened in those tunnels.

It’s late, but not so late that she can’t find someone on the campus to kindly point her towards her brother’s room. Okay, so _maybe_ she threatened the boy a tiny bit for being out past the academy’s curfew, and _maybe_ she busted the lock on Nico’s door to get in once she found it (she’ll pay for it later), but the desperation to finally see her pseudo-twin brother as nothing more than a familiar snoring lump on the cot in the far corner already brings her comfort. He stirs when she sits at the edge of the mattress (as uncomfortable as she remembers), but the innate recognition of each other’s presence that they have had since childhood is going strong. He doesn’t react much more than to wrap an arm around her when she all but flops her upper body over him.

“Didn’ think y’were in the city, Chrissy,” he slurs, voice thick with sleep. A hand pats her head confusedly. “Y’re gettin' hair again, when'd that happen?” True enough, her fingers run across her scalp, and she, indeed, feels the fuzz of her own hair growing back after several weeks of forgetting to maintain it. Interesting.

Regardless, he obviously hadn’t gone to bed too long ago, then. Probably got him in the middle of a dream and left him groggy. It’s a familiar routine from when they were children, and she relishes in it as much as she can allow for something so positive.

She pulls her legs up so she’s curled into the bulkier human, and her voice is nothing but weak. “I don’t know. I'm here on a job.” Nicodemos cracks a bleary, dark honey eye open at the watery waver in the genasi’s tone. Of course, she and Nico aren’t related by blood, but adoption. She’s earthen genasi—dark brown skin, unnaturally shimmering eyes of amber to match the gold and bronze lines of metal inlaid across head, limbs, and throat, with ears showing a clear fey lineage. Nico is human—olive skin, intuitive eyes that still manage nothing but warmth, and there’s a lack of anything elven about him from the rounded ears to the ever-so-slightly scraggly beard tickling the top of her head. It hardly matters to her, though. He’s _her_ little brother, younger by a month, and that’s all that is important. Even when he acts like the elder sibling, he is her family, plain and simple.

Something he sees in her face wakes him up fully, and the frown as he shifts to get a better look at her in the dim light is pure worry. “Chrys? What happened? You never cry.”

Cry? Wide eyed, she blinks as her fingers come away from under her cheek with tears staining them. Steadily, grief is leaking from her eyes, and she hadn’t even noticed.

But Nico is right. She never cries. Her brow furrows at the water dripping from her jaw, the feel of it cooling along the length of her throat. How long have these tears been falling? And just like that, a pitiful, mournful sob hitches in her throat for the first time in…gods, she doesn’t even know how long.

“He…thought we hated him. W-we didn’t hate him. Nico, I was just disappointed. He ran off on his own without telling anyone, and then the devil, and the circles—Nico, _I didn’t hate him_!” Chrys hiccoughs, shuddering gasps puffing from her throat as she buries her face into her brother’s chest as if doing so will hide her from the turmoil rolling through her chest. For his part, Nicodemos doesn’t ask questions. He just tightens his grip on his sister and lets her vent. He can ask questions and sate worry later.

“It should have been me. I was right next to the ankheg, too—it could have attacked me just as easily. I…I could have provoked it, maybe? I could have done something. I had the potion, I could have gotten to him before it killed him!” she mumbles. “But I didn’t. I fucked up, and Vymak is… He shouldn’t be gone!” Chrys cuts herself off, voice trailing in her throat. She can’t say the words. Instead, she nuzzles even further into her brother’s shirt in a vain attempt to keep the thought from clawing into her head. Too late. It echoes, but she can’t bring herself to acknowledge the end yet. Maybe she never will. She still can’t with Vienne. That one word won’t…work, she supposes.

He shushes her in a familiar routine to when she was a girl and would wake with night terrors. “Shh. Chrissy. You couldn’t know. There was no way for you to know. You’re right, you didn’t hate him. He had everyone in your group, whether he realized it or not. Maybe you all were upset with him, but what matters is that you didn't abandon him. It’s not your fault.”

“But it _is_!” she insists.

“No, it’s not,” he shoots back just as firmly. The hand that had been patting at her back stops with the small bite of his sarcasm. “Or have you developed foresight when I wasn’t looking?”

Chrys sniffles. “Was that supposed to be a pun?” An inside joke.

“Was that supposed to be deflection? Answer.”

The genasi huffs, turning her head a little to be more comfortable and hopefully _not_ soak her brother’s shirt in tears any more than she already has. “No.”

“Then,” he starts in his patented matter-of-fact tone that’s always made her kind of want to deck him in the face, “how could you have known what the ankheg was going to do? What your friend was going to do? You had no idea what was going to happen, so how could you have stopped it when it was unexpected? And if you say you should have expected it, I will hide all of your books for a week.”

“Hardly fair,” Chrys whines. “You sound like Momma.”

He scoffs. “Fitting, since you’re acting like a child.”

In a startled flash, she pulls back, face drawn. “ _Nicodemos!_ ” More tears slip from her iridescent eyes, and the cringe on the cleric’s face tells her that her brother didn’t mean it as insensitive as it sounded.

“Poor choice of words, but please keep your voice down, _delinquent_. You’re not even supposed to be in here. Opposite sex and all that.”

Exhausted, Chrys drops her head back down, but she does remember to lower her voice. “I’m your _sister_.”

“Yeah, the family resemblance is _striking_ ,” he snorts, exuding mockery like a slug exudes slime. “They’ll notice right away and be understanding, surely. Headmaster Frostweaver would have me scrubbing the kitchens for a month if you’re caught in here, and I’m only a visiting scholar.”

“He wouldn’t, the Headmaster likes me.”

The sniggering that follows is something she expects half a second too late, and she tilts her head to give him a _look_ in warning. It does nothing as he suggestively waggles his eyebrows at her like a lunatic. “Like, or _like like_.” Grimacing, Chrys smacks her brother lightly upside the head, which unfortunately only causes him to laugh more.

“ _Gross!_ That’s so wrong.”

“Got you to smile, didn’t it?” This causes the genasi to pause, finally realizing like with her tears before that she is, indeed, smiling. It’s little more than a small upturn of her lips, but it’s something. Immediately, however, it falls a little. How can she be smiling right now? How can she be laughing and joking and carrying on when…when—

Nico flicks his sister’s nose. “Nope. Don’t you dare.”

“Easier said than done,” she grumbles, hand rubbing the abused portion of her face and glaring at this moron she claims as family.

The man shrugs. “Maybe. But now that you’re calmer, mind telling me what you’re actually doing in Westruun? Last I heard from you, you were off in that village…Shadewick, was it? I thought you were done with the city for a while. You need to write to Dad, too, by the way. The only reason he hasn’t stormed the countryside looking for you is because I’ve been able to give him updates from the letters you send _me_. You know how he worries since Mom died.”

The girl groans as if pained by the notion. “Momma was _sick_ , not running across the Plains. I’m perfectly capable of handling some travelling. And look! I even have _traveling companions_ now!”

“…How is ‘ _running across the Plains_ ’ safer than dying from an illness, exactly?”

“…Shut up. Respect your elders.”

Her ear is pinched and tugged. “A _month_ , Chrysopal. One month.”

“Ow! Elder abuse! Let go!”

A wide, mischievous grin is her response. “Nope! What’re you doing here? Spill.” Chrys sighs with a wince of mild discomfort as her brother is _still_ pulling on her ear and figures acquiescing is the path of least resistance at this point.

“Fine, short version?” He nods, and she launches into the story of running into Footsteps and Lucus initially in Shadewick, agreeing to help the mayor there out with a few problems, then running into Emelia, Sifr, and Vymak (her voice still wavers at the goliath’s name, but Nico does her the favor of not commenting), enlisting them to tag along. Then getting off track, the shadows, and the possibility of a lich which causes the cleric to stiffen in alarm. The story is condensed into something bite-sized and digestible, enough detail to give her brother a decent sense of what’s happened. He seems appeased with her recount, however…

“ _You have an assassin after you_?!”

Eye twitching because _of course that’s what he takes from this_ , she hisses, “I said it _might_ be an assassin. Could just be a hired thug meant to throw a few punches for all I know. No one said the word _assassin_. Urlsen’s an ass, but I don’t know if he’d go quite that far.”

“Uh, yeah, you specifically said ‘ _assassin_ ’, I heard it clear as day. And really? That old bastard is a damn psychopath.” _Okay, fair point…_

“Fine, assassin, whatever. That’s not the problem at the moment.” A few seconds slug by before Chrys heaves a heavy, bone-weary sigh. “I…I don’t know. I knew you were here, and I needed…family. I probably shouldn’t have left the others, though. They went back to Lucus’ house, I think. Probably ought to go there, and you need sleep.” In what is probably half an instant, Chrys finds herself dragged upright, the blankets she’d been sitting on suddenly yanked from under her with a firm tug.

“Nope! I’m going with you. You don’t need to be walking back alone in the middle of the night, fancy monk moves or not, and I’d like to pay my respects to your friend.” If Chrys had any tears left to cry, she probably would.

Instead, her brother receives one last hug before they both clamber to their feet. “Thank you, Nico.”

“Love you, too, Chrissy.”

* * *

**_He_ chose _not to come back._**

Footsteps’ words to both herself, Emelia, and Nico by extension echo in her ears as she stares down at the wooden table like it holds the answers to the universe. Processing what the cleric just said is…not working. Cogs keep turning, but something sticks and the thoughts stumble. Nicodemos’ hand falls heavy on her hunched back as they sit side-by-side on the wooden bench. They’re in the same dining hall from the first time she and her group visited Lucus’ home earlier today (yesterday?), but the monk barely acknowledges it.

According to the kenku, Wee Jas _had_ answered him when he’d been bent over the goliath’s still body, all but begging for _some_ sort of intervention. Wee Jas, this goddess of the dead, had given an impossible offer—she would have brought Vymak back from the dead, much in the same way she extended such aid to Footsteps however long ago. But Vymak? No. Vymak refused.

_He chose to stay gone_. He chose to move on. He chose to abandon them, to abandon the rest of what is _hers_ and hurt them all in the process.

How much Chrys actually _liked_ Vymak is up for debate. They clashed, but she cared, dammit. She still cares, even though he’s… _that word that she can’t think_. He was hers, and he’s gone. He’s gone in part _because_ of her, and he’s _staying_ gone because he refused to come back to them.

Why? Why would he…? _How_ could he…?

She remembers Sifr’s wails (she can’t think of a better word—the construct had been _wailing_ ), Footsteps’ tears, Emelia’s shock, Lucus’ horror, her own grief. _How could he?_ Had he really thought they hated him that much?

Without preamble and to try cutting off her thoughts before they can begin, Chrys slams her hands on the table and shoots to her feet. Nico, intuitive to her whims as always, remains where he is and allows his sister to stalk off through the house-turned-temple. His, Footsteps’, and Emelia’s eyes on her as she sweeps out of the room rest heavily, but she can’t bring herself to care overmuch. She finds stairs and climbs, climbs, climbs, hoping that with the distance and height to a new floor, she might be able to distance herself from the misery of everyone in that dining hall.

Well, save Lucus and Sifr. She’s not entirely sure where they are—Lucus she knows is somewhere in the temple, though Sifr she’s unsure.

Wandering around the upper floor, she eventually finds the balcony containing the flame that Footsteps had been so fascinated with the first time they were here, a symbol of the Everlight. It’s entrancing and reminds her morbidly of the pyre she couldn’t watch, so without much thought, she picks a wall and sinks to the floor. Knees draw to her chest, arms wrap around the limbs, and her face nestles to solemnly gaze into the fire. She feels sort of like she’s making up for not being able to stay through the burning, and she’s furthermore not sure how she feels about that.

She’s apparently not sure how she feels about anything anymore. Is that normal? She can’t remember.

After a while, a few muffled voices carry through the open door from down the hall. Emelia, she thinks, and someone sounding vaguely like Lucus. She can’t bring herself to move, and it’s probably a conversation the two of them need anyway. There’s no way around it, they both had to have lost much when the city was attacked ten years ago and losing Vymak obviously is not going to cater positively to that. Yes, Chrys _sort of_ lost, too, but she didn’t know the other students and instructors who died, at least not very well. She’d barely been at Westhall a few months before the Chroma Conclave attacked, not enough time to get to know anyone when her head was constantly in a textbook. She can’t exactly sympathize with either of them, nor can she really with Footsteps, nor with Sifr (speaking of, _where is he_?). Perhaps it is better for her to be here and alone right now. She’d only be in the way.

The fire entrances, almost, and she feels close to meditative. Reflective. How long she’s sitting here, she’s not sure when Lucus finds her. She barely acknowledges he’s stepped onto the balcony, and he doesn’t push her. Instead, the other monk of the party walks up to the flame, absently beginning to play with it as it does not seem to have any effect on him. This, she blinks, intrigues her. It intrigues her enough to stand and shuffle the few steps over to the bowl of flickering light.

“It won’t burn you,” mutters her friend, passing his hand through once more to prove his point. Chrys follows his example quietly, still appearing dazed though a ghost of a smile lifts on her face for a brief moment at the tickling across metal-inlaid skin. They stand side-by-side for several minutes, a latent silence that is neither awkward, nor pressing.

Finally, Chrys’ voice breaks through the quiet. It’s a bit hoarse from her crying earlier (crying she will not admit to) and the muteness she adopted on the way here from Westhall. “Vymak isn’t back yet.” Lucus immediately shoots her a mildly concerned look, and she registers her words barely too late.

Her head drops down. “ _Sifr_. I meant Sifr.” She didn’t, and they both know it, but neither acknowledge the slip. Perhaps he feels the bloodhunter’s void as much as she does.

“We should probably go look for him,” he nods, shooting the doorway back into the manor a quick glance. “The others are downstairs.”

“I left my brother with them. You met him, briefly. Footsteps was explaining what happened when he was praying to Wee Jas for Vymak and I…couldn’t stay there.”

“That was your brother?”

Chrys nods, not meeting his eyes or really looking up from the flame. “Adopted, yeah. Nicodemos Argyris. He’s in the city for a little bit to brush up on some things at the academy. He’s a cleric. He worships Serenrae, actually. I think he’s been to her shrine here? You’d have to ask him for sure.”

Her friend hums. “Interesting.” Chrys drags her eyes away from the fire to peer at him. She feels words bubbling up her throat, on the tip of her tongue. She wants to express that she’s sorry, she wants to scream about how it’s her fault, whisper about how in those moments of seeing Vymak so still on the ground, all she could see was Vienne in her cage with the self-inflicted knife in her ribs, her own guilt within the blood that was spilled. She wants to talk about the carnage at the academy what feels like so long ago and how it haunts her dreams still, and she wants to _cry_ (again) about her mother’s illness even _more_ years ago, the illness that made the decision to study alchemy for her. She wants to speak to someone other than Nicodemos about how she yearns for her family, but there’s no way she can look her father in the eye, hug Alexios and Mnemosyne, or chide Persephone and Zephyra for their mischief after all she’s done. She wants to trust someone else with all this _stuff_ clamoring around in her head just waiting for an outlet, and Lucus seems a good confidant. He seems like he wouldn’t judge her for her follies or chide her mistakes if she’s learned from them. Has she?

She can’t speak, though. The syllables and sentences die before they can pass her lips, and she thinks that is probably best.

She’s burdened Nicodemos as it is. She was bothersome enough to the others, Lucus most of all, with her clinginess in the face of loss. Her problems are inconsequential compared to theirs. The others come first, that’s how it goes. She’s fine.

Her chest constricts painfully at the thought—she is far from fine—but her expression remains neutral as she nods to the human (aasimar? Still need to check on that later) next to her. “Let’s go. Gods only know what Nico could be getting into unsupervised. Or Sifr, for that matter.”

They leave the balcony. Chrys can’t help but take one more glance back at Serenrae’s flame and send a prayer for the first time to a god not her own and wonders if there’s enough strength left in everyone to eventually say goodbye to what they’ve lost. If there’s enough strength left in _herself_ to possibly forgive her own mistakes.

_Maybe_ , she thinks with a small, contemplative smile, and the balcony door swings shut behind her with a soft _click_.

* * *

“ _So now it’s time to say goodbye to broken dreams_

_as we try to save a life with broken wings._

_These walls keep talking._ ”

-Alive in Barcelona, “House of Memories”


	2. Height (Tawyn Mimbly)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DO NOT call Tawyn Mimbly "little" or anything of the short...I mean, sort.  
> \---  
> A deep gnome barbarian dual-wielding handaxes as tall as she is with a height complex--need I say more?

“ _I was told I would never make it because I’m too short. Well, I’m still too short. It doesn’t matter what your height is, it’s what’s in your heart._ ”

-Kirby Puckett

* * *

**The fight is proving to be a long and arduous one** , goblins and wolves swarming the cave. Some of the wolves right off the bat had been taken care of by Lanhareth through some means of which the rest of them were ignorant. The strange man refused to share, though his mysteries were quickly deemed trivial in light of the hazards faced when attempting to be stealthy in an echo-y cave with a goliath and a gnome who are anything but.

It had been going swimmingly, Tawyn thinks sarcastically, at least until they brought out the bugbear. Towering and furry and, more importantly, angry, the  _ svirfneblin _ has to crane her neck just to see the tip of its furred ears properly. Forget seeing its eyes—the thing is too freakishly tall for that. That's what everything on this strange surface is, she insists. Freakishly tall, the lot of them.

Still, abnormal height or not, the bugbear is a problem. One of her grudging party members had neatly killed one of its wolves that it had been fairly attached to…or something, which has led it to rampage so spectacularly. Tawyn can't be bothered to care why it's angry or who pushed it that way. She's only here for the coin and shiny baubles, if you please, have a nice day, and thank you kindly. Fuck everything else, especially the spirits-damned dwarves who hired her and got her into this mess in the first damned place. Dwarves—third and last time she'll trust the bastards.

The bugbear roars something to draw her out of her rage-fueled grumbling, and she tightens her grip on both of her rough-forged handaxes, which are about as big as she is, just in case. It's noticed them but doesn't seem to have quite gotten it through its skull that it has a very large, very painful, very crushing weapon in its hand that could, at the very least, render her a pancake on the musty cavern floor.

Kayne, their resident rogue, says something Tawyn can't hear past the blood rushing through her pointed ears. Bits of grime picked up from the cave paint along her furs and grey skin, too-pale, viridescent eyes trained alongside all of her focus on the beast in front of her. Planning. Plotting. Barbaric her methods may be, but Tawyn holds steadfastly that she is not stupid. Reckless, yes. But not stu—

“’Scuse me, little lady,” rumbles the voice of the goliath positioned near where she stands strategically at a natural chokepoint. Melchor, grin swept across his deformed face and still damp from the swim he took earlier courtesy of a trap, thunders around to flank the bugbear. Had he not flippantly spoken a pardon to her, Tawyn would have been of the mind that she might as well have not even been there. Her pale grey face twists slowly with rising indignation, and watching Melchor jubilantly swing his greataxe only fuels it.

“I'm not little!” she huffs, accented Common thick, but through the din of battle, it drifts on the wind before being swallowed by the sounds of swinging weapons and dying creatures. The creature and Melchor both roar. It is lost on her. “I'm not fucking little!” Hissed through her teeth, the gnome seethes with a ferocity that is almost frightening. Instead of clouding her mind, though, the combination of righteous fury and indignation only serves to sharpen Tawyn's gaze.

And that gaze lands prophetically on the largest enemy in the room.

The second handaxe is tossed carelessly in the dirt.

“I'M NOT LITTLE!!!” Roaring, she takes a small running leap and with a flurry of grasping, pushing, clawing, and hacking, scrambles the length of the despairing bugbear to perch precariously upon its shoulders. Its whimpers every time she pulls its fur or shallowly embeds her axe to gain leverage are music to her ears.

Huffing and puffing, Tawyn chances a glance to Melchor. His simultaneous rage and enjoyment in equal measure do not faze her past her own wrath. But that is not the point. Every fiber of her acrimony, every ounce of slighted malice demands the goliath's blood. Both hands fall to the handle of her axe, gripping tight and rough against the wood. With a final shriek, she lifts the sharp weapon over her head before she (or the bugbear, more importantly) can think further of it.

“I. AM NOT. LITTLE!!!” Bringing it down powerfully and swiftly and wishing her target be Melchor instead, the furry head of the rampaging bugbear splits easily like a gory melon.

Tawyn does not remember the fall of the creature and how she descended to the cavern floor. Nor does she much recall working their way out of the cavern, though she does remember scaling a rather large wall to try and surprise some goblins. The rescue mission they were on is a blur. All that matters, all that is forever important, is the tiny look of fear that passed over Melchor's face when she cleaved apart the beast's head, staring him straight in the eye the whole time.

And that is how Tawyn Mimbly, deep gnomish barbarian, came to be known to her adventuring party as having a height complex.

But she doesn't.

Because she's not little.

* * *

“ _What? I’m not small! It’s the world that’s too big!_ ”

-Edward Elric, “Fullmetal Alchemist”


	3. Hate (Perennial Althier)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renny hates Barras. Except she doesn't.   
> \---  
> One of many versions of Perennial, an unwilling double-agent being blackmailed by a shady organization to spy on the government of whatever world I've thrown her into.

* * *

“ _ Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. _ ”

-George Washington Carver

* * *

**Renny has…seen worse.**

It's all she can think, if she's honest, staring with wry amusement at the trash littering the sewers to her left and the tattered remains of old green and yellow Enforcement banners crumpled to her right against the alley wall. Boundbrook has its rough spots, to be sure. And no, this is not the most abominable district the young woman has ever traversed—the Yqan Quarter has her current location in Vestet Heights beaten by a metaphorical mile with only the Docklands a very close second—but  _ damn _ if it still isn't rough. Though, isn't it a mark of her upbringing that she still isn't quite used to it?

Shaking those thoughts away, her arms unfold from where they crossed over her leathers. She's not here to admire the filth and the desperate that line the cobbled back roads, languishing in midday sun. No, Renny has a  _ purpose _ , and she's lying to even attempt claiming it doesn't still scare her almost a decade later.

She sighs, continuing on as if the thoughts swirling through her head don’t bother her in the slightest. Green eyes appear heavy-lidded and lackluster, however they’re anything but. They’re sharply peeled, peering at doorway and windowsill, brick and half-sloughed propaganda poster for the familiar, white-chalk lines denoting her destination. It is far from a destination she wishes to have. The woman is chagrinned to realize once again with plenty of venomous distaste that she hardly has a choice in the matter. There is no out. At least, not yet, and none sadly in sight. 

She will find one, she’s sure. Just not now. 

Renny almost misses it in her annoyance, and she has to do a double-take to catch it for certain alongside ripped faces of politicians and four-year-old cheesy slogans. An X etched in crumbling white chalk to the side of a rotting door, a hook along the top right line and looking the part of inane graffiti. Her teeth grind. She pauses before it a fraction of a second too long—if she’d “missed” that innocent symbol, then she’d have an excuse for not showing, after all—but she taps along the door in a frustratingly familiar rhythm anyway. Damn them for making this all engrained. Or would it be damn  _ her _ ? She can’t decide how much blame she wishes to take for her nine-years-long situation. If she had her way, she’d take none of it. A splinter is what rewards her for thinking, and she scowls at the side of her hand. 

A beat later, the door cracks open. Renny tries to ignore the curious beggar a little way away, wondering for herself just how often this door does—or doesn’t—open for him to appear so enraptured. Or perhaps he’s mad. Who’s she to know? Who’s she to  _ care _ , truly?

“Pass?” 

She narrowly avoids rolling her eyes. Secrecy, shadows, and subterfuge—she hates it. “You know damn well who I am, Belenas.” Codes can be left to the codebreakers, that’s not her job. 

The poor lackey guarding the door frowns at her if the small bit of his face she can see through the sliver he’s allotted is anything to go by. He clearly is not as amused by her halfhearted speech, and he voices such. “You’re impossible.” The door opens wider to allow her access, though not too wide, of course. It’s shut right after her so quickly that it almost traps the edge of her cloak. Her sharp glare at the guard who she confirms to be the young elf-blooded Belenas goes unrecognized. 

“Fuck off, no one actually listens to that crap anyway. Or cares.” she snarks, turning away to further stalk angrily through the building. It’s a dilapidated place, though not much else can be expected if one goes by the façade. Patchwork and peeling walls, some plaster and some paper, would have given the split rooms vibrancy if the yellow daisies and soft lavender pigments weren’t smeared with dust, dirt, and gods only know what else from the years of neglect. Renny isn’t entirely sure how long her associates have had access to the space, and she’s not even certain if she wants to know. 

A broken table is shoved into a far corner, the culprits perhaps too lazy to dispose of it properly, and a chair she assumes was meant to accompany it lays overturned not far away. Ratty old sofas and armchairs as well as an out-of-place church pew all in varying states of mismatch are also scattered about, and all have seen better days. The busted lightbulbs scream of long disabled—or  _ disused _ , at any rate—electricity. She truthfully wonders if the kitchen through a bending doorway even has running water, and it baffles the woman to her core. She wouldn’t peg any of these people to live in these conditions, least of all Barras. It has never seemed their style, but perhaps it  _ is _ less suspicious this way. No one would think to look for the pompous crime lords  _ here _ of all places. Well, no one would if said crime lords weren't considered more mythical than substantial. Jokes on the authorities, she supposes--Barras, at least, is  _ uncomfortably _ real.

“The cant has a purpose, you know.” 

“Yes, of course, to give me a headache and waste everyone’s time.” Renny flops a hand around as she turns to face him again. “Neither here nor there. Barras around? Heard he wanted to speak to me.”

Belenas appears unimpressed. Or maybe that's just the half-elf's face. “Office. As always.” His toffee hair is messier than usual, Renny notes with a squint. She's known Belenas for a year now, and never has he appeared quite this unkempt. At least, not for a good reason that never ends up boding well for her.

“He’s not happy.” A statement, not a question. 

Grey-hazel all but snaps with his voice, “ _ No _ , he's not. Would you be? You've seen the Enforcement patrols tripling in the Heights no doubt. This safe house can't be compromised.”

“You’re paranoid.”

A flat look is leveled unabashedly at her. “You know we're not.”

Renny huffs, flipping an errant lock of black hair out of her face as she does so. “Relax. We all will be able to keep to our shadows and bribes soon enough. Increased patrols aren’t abnormal. The Chamber of Scales will get bored with their hunt in a few weeks, and the Lawkeeper will draw them back just like every other time she picks a fight with a random district. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go speak to Barras before he marches out here and has my head for dicking around talking to you.” Renny smartly gives a sarcastic flourish of a farewell wave and turns smartly on her heel to march towards the back of the rickety townhouse where she knows an equally decayed office awaits her. 

“You should quit your day job, Althier!” Belenas calls sarcastically after her retreat. She winces where he can't see at her surname, a thing she wishes beyond all hope that these people did not know. A curse to herself for  _ letting  _ them know it even though  _ it is not her fault dammit _ . She can’t be blamed for a sixteen-year-old idiot's mistake, she refuses to be. 

Her voice attempts to be blithe. “Which one?” She's around the corner and climbing unsteady stairs before he can respond. An absence of the sentinel’s voice is always welcome music to the woman's ears. 

Despite the floorboards being old and termite-infested, Renny's steps remain light and barely make a sound as she hits the small landing to be almost immediately faced with Barras' office. Well, if it can even be called that. It's one of what she assumes used to be two bedrooms once upon a time, but it's so cramped that his desk barely gives him enough space to sit. The desk is the one luxury she's ever seen here, a varnished cherry wood and intricately carved like something she'd find right at home in her father’s study. Where Barras got it, she's no clue. The more thought she gives the desk, though, the more she admits the leader of this little outfit she finds herself part of probably stole it.

Behind the piece of furniture sits the man…well,  _ halfling _ himself. His dark head of hair is bowed and obscuring his eyes to her in preference to some papers she swears are only in front of him to make him look busy or important, but Renny knows he's fully aware of her despite her silence. He's good at that. It's disturbing, a trick that makes him seem a bigger presence than his stature would ordinarily allow.

“Done gossiping with Belenas, are you?” He asks after a tense, deliberate silence. Barras' voice is an unmistakable rasp—Renny could pick it out of a hundreds-strong crowd if the need ever arose. She figures it has to do with the crisscrossing mess of scar tissue across his throat he never hides well enough. A deliberate move, she's sure, meant to intimidate.

The woman stops before the desk, arms folded smartly, and even then she's half in the doorway. “He started it.” She's childishly petulant, but something about the halfling brings it out in her.

She's finally graced with his sienna-eyed gaze, and it's laden with an incredulous skepticism. “You always say that,  _ Tachyk _ .” 

The damned nine-year-old nickname pisses her off. It’s halfling, she knows that much, but it is a dialect she can't recognize. Renny has dealt plenty with his kind over the years, but Barras still remains a mystery to her. He's like no halfling she's ever met, closed off and with the strangest air about him. He’ll never elaborate. She’s not stupid enough to waste breath asking. Still, doesn’t change how much it irks her. 

“Well, it's always true,” she pouts. A sigh. “Cut the crap. What do you want? You know, I’m supposed to be halfway to Valence right now.”

He shakes his head at her boldness, but reaches for a stack of papers to begin thumbing through them impatiently with fingers surely better suited for lockpicks than a pen. “Change of plans. You’re going to Erith.” A packet neatly clipped together is tossed at her. She doesn’t pick it up or even spare it a glance. Instead, her face twists.

“The fuck I am! You can’t keep doing this. You’re the one who ordered me to take that damn job in the first place! I can’t  _ work _ that job if you keep pulling me back to do your dirty work every other week!”

Barras raises a deceptively innocent brow. “That’s a no on this assignment then, just to be clear?”

“Unless you've found a  _ miraculous  _ way to allow me to be in two places at once,” she drawls, dripping sarcasm. They both know she doesn’t believe in miracles. “I  _ can't _ do it.”

“You’re certain? Absolutely?”

A sinking feeling levels in her gut, but she ignores it. “ _ Of fucking course I am! _ ” She all but gnashes her teeth at him, perturbed when he leans back in his chair to grin like the proverbial cat well-fed on canary. 

“How is Gerald doing, by chance? It's definitely been a while.” Renny's blood runs cold. Of course. Of course he does. Why would she expect any different? She never has a choice. 

After all, a choice would be a miracle and miracles are horseshit. 

“ _ Fuck you _ ,” she tries to hiss, but it comes out barely a whimper. “You have  _ no right _ . At all!”

Barras' eyes go sharp. Sharper than she's ever seen. Renny is daring, but this is gutsy even for her. “I have  _ every _ right. You do well to remember I  _ own _ you, girl.” 

Damn it. Damn him. Damn  _ her _ . Her back burns in memory of a phantom mistake, and the truth does nothing but add lashes to an old scar.

“I hate you.”

A smirk slowly and victoriously,  _ knowingly _ crawls onto his face. Renny likens it to a slug in her rage. 

“No, you don't.” 

She doesn’t. He's right, and  _ that _ , instead, is what she hates. 

Barras gestures lackadaisically to the papers he tossed her. “Arrangements are covered, it's all official. An envoy for an…asset, shall we say? You're on official payroll for this one. Take the job if it pleases you. If not, please do tell your father I send my regards when you run home. It'd be a shame if something happened, no? How long has he been retired, again? That injury of his must be a bother.”

He stares her down, daring. 

She doesn’t even hesitate to take the papers in the end, and that is what shames her the most. 

* * *

“ _ We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that, in the end, we become disguised to ourselves. _ ”

-François de La Rochefoucauld


	4. Death (Chrysopal--AKA The TPK Narrative No One Asked For)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How ironic is it that it takes her own imminent death for her to be able to say the word?   
> \---  
> My DM threw a Beholder at us. Chrys and Alley were against fighting the Beholder. We were outnumbered. Help couldn't find us. So we fought the Beholder and TPK'd. Chrys has a very shaky relationship with death--she can't quite say the word. Until she's dying. 
> 
> Also, the earth genasi died by being turned to stone and shattered, how ironic is that?

* * *

“ _ I’ve got an uneasy kind of feeling. _ _   
_ _ It’s so hard to say goodbye and let you go. _ _   
_ _ But if you need me to be deceiving _ _   
_ _ and tell you there’s a heaven for us that sold our souls _ _   
_ _ and no one was keeping track of lies we told. _ _   
_ _ That just ain’t so. _ ”

-One Less Reason, “Uneasy”

* * *

**There is blood beneath her fingernails** as she scrabbles for footholds, trusting her climbing this high up more than the magic of her boots. She won’t look for want of her own sanity, but Chrys knows the lumbering beast is floating ever-closer, lingering just in her peripheral like a nightmare ready to strike. Words tumble out of her mouth in Undercommon, pleading while tears fall despite her best attempts to hold them back. It’s dire. They never should have come here. She and Alley tried to tell them, but they didn’t listen, and now they’re  _ that word she can’t say _ . 

“Please, they’re my family,” she whimpers, surely pitifully and with futility accepted in her tone even as she  _ tries _ . She tries  _ so damn hard _ to find words that might do  _ something  _ because what else is there left to do? “I told them this was a bad idea, but they wouldn’t listen. Just let us go, please, we won’t bother you again. Please, they’re my family, they’re all I have!” Pride is gone, down in the pit with Emelia and Alley. 

The beholder’s response is merely to try and hit her with more beams. How Chrys dodges them in her state, she does not know. She doesn’t want to know. All she cares about is reaching the top of this pit. Scramble, climb, reach, pull, lift, over and over and over again as she can feel her arms burn and exhaustion creep within her bones. It is surprisingly quiet within this chamber the aberration calls home. Too quiet. An absence of sound, voice, battle, magic—there’s too much stillness. 

She knows what that means, but she can’t think of it. 

Another handhold is found before her fingers are given purchase on cracked flagstone delineating the solid floor around what Chrys long since decided to call  _ The Death Pit _ . She’s faster than the beholder— _ much faster _ —and she eyes the doorway once she’s swiftly pulled herself up to her feet. It’s far behind her. If she tries, if she tries her  _ hardest _ , she may make the door. 

A glance over to her right, and molten eyes find Footsteps first. 

He is crumpled, listless, and so, so quiet. A quick glance over to her other side finds Syl’valar a statue, petrified, turned to stone and as close to dead as she’s sure he can be. He is still aware, though, she knows that much, but she cannot allow a moment to pity him. Footsteps is dead. Alley and Emelia are not where they should be. They should have beaten her out of the pit. 

But they are not here, and Chrys is distraught. 

_ Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, no _ , she thinks, frantic, finally turning eyes to the door and doing the only thing she  _ can _ do. Run. Run as fast and as far as she can and maybe, maybe, she’ll find some way to make peace with her cowardice. 

Her hesitation costs her. 

A sharp tug, and Chrys feels the motion backward as sharply as if the beast had actually struck her. It isn’t a physical pain, not really, but it hurts almost worse. She struggles, but it is pointless. There is no movement to be had. 

They are all dead. Her family is dead. This is exactly what she was afraid of, tried and failed to talk them out of, and now they are dead. There is no help coming, no hope, everything they stood for is dead and gone and as good as buried. She is alone. She is dying. 

_ She is dying alone _ . 

Another hit. She feels the petrification before she sees it, the loss of motion in her limbs, freezing in place even as the edge of the goddamned pit comes into sight. 

She is dying alone. They are all dead. 

Is it funny or sad that it takes her own death for her to finally be able to say that damned word? 

They are all dead, and what have they died for? Pride? Arrogance? A boundless sense of _responsibility_ _to do good_? What purpose have they served? Nothing. 

They are all dead and they have died for  _ nothing _ . 

Her eyes slide closed just before they turn to stone—maybe if she doesn’t  _ see _ the end, it won’t be true. She plummets. And knows no more.

* * *

“ _ You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe _ .

-Anton Chekhov


	5. Guilt (Perennial Althier)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one should trust her, isn't it clear?  
> \---  
> It's Renny from another campaign but the same character concept. She's willing to protect her home however she can, even if it means lying to a crime lord about saving his weapons for him. 
> 
> (I later proceeded to blow up the whole train at the last minute in a last-ditch effort, almost dying in the process. It was a fun time.)

“ _ Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt. _ ”   
-François de La Rochefoucauld

* * *

**Her lungs burn** , arms ache, and if forced to distill her current state down to a single word, Perennial Althier would simply say she is tired.

Yes, tired covers it all quite nicely though tired is bad and doesn’t bode well. Not with the stale, inevitable guilt roiling up in her throat like bile. Instead of acid, it’s secrets she knows she cannot say. They hurt all the same, and Renny is so, so,  _ so _ tired of the pain, of the sick, of the lies, of the guilt and the knives she always leaves in backs, not least of all those she wedges in her own. 

But she knows the Loveridges can’t get those guns. Weapons in the wrong hands cannot stand, simply put, and Maxwell Loveridge is most definitely  _ not _ the right hands. Nothing she can do about that, not truly. It is not her job. She refuses to go above and beyond for this. Spite wars with remorse and wins in the end. Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself. 

“Hey! Wait! How’re you gonna get back!” Maxwell, the half-orc in question, bellows from the quickly departing train platform. Perennial fixes her collected mask in place, reflexive after so many years practicing, what feels like centuries but isn’t. She can’t look him straight on, which is probably yet another bad thing, but the guilt is overwhelming if she does. She can barely look at anyone anymore without feeling guilty. Guilt, guilt, guilt, and more guilt—that’s her life. How did it get like this? She knows, but admitting it hurts so she doesn’t. 

Gripping the rail around the back car of the train as if her life depends on it (indeed, it may at some point in the near future), the woman leans forward as much as space will allow to bellow back over the braying of steam engines and train horns, “We will, don’t worry! Go catch the other ones! We’ll get your guns back, I promise!” Another lie. The guns won’t be leaving this train, not if she has anything to say about it. They’re too far gone. Part of a bigger plot if she’s right, a plot that cannot come to pass, and while her loyalties at any given point are apparently questionable at best, she won’t let Waterdeep, the only home she’s ever known, go down without a fight. Last line of defense, she supposes. She likes the sound of that. It can never be, but she likes it, and the fantasy is something to latch onto, if only for a little while to make her feel better for what she’s about to do. 

Damn the anarchists, damn the Rapscallions, damn the government, damn the Loveridges, damn the dwarves, and damn anyone else who wants to ruin her week with this goddamn pissing contest over these guns for all she cares. They’re a problem. Destroy the problem. Problem solved. A necklace of exploding beads lays heavy in her pocket, a noisy resource she hopes she doesn’t have to turn to, but she is  _ done _ . Done. 

She’ll watch the world burn gladly if it just makes them all  _ stop _ . 

Or, well, maybe just a train will do. But that is neither here nor there at the moment. 

The half-orc is floundering at her from the platform, ever-increasing chasm of distance appearing like a gaping maw as the train begins to pick up speed, as departing trains are wont to do. The other two with her (she honestly can’t be bothered to remember their actual names—they go by Hingus and Dingus as a joke, and that’s good enough for her) wait for her to engage the man, waiting for her cue like they have the past several days. She hates it. She hates being the one with all the answers when she so clearly is not. How can they not see that? 

“B-but how—?” stutters Maxwell. Renny feels a measure of sympathy for the man, followed quickly with that ever-immortal well of regret that she stamps down with a merciless vengeance. Now is not the time. There is never a time. 

_ It’s not his fault though, _ that traitorous little voice whispers in the back of her mind. Her  _ conscience _ , she all but spits. She shoves that away with the guilt, too. No room. 

“Maxwell,” Renny starts, forcing eye contact to make this more believable. It is not, whatsoever, to distract her from how much she hates herself for this. Not at all. “ _ Trust me _ .” 

Echoes of a request uttered dozens of times before. All of them false. No one should trust her. A promise is made to be broken, hers especially, and  _ why can they not see that _ ? But Maxwell doesn’t because of  _ course _ he doesn’t, his eyes are guileless and gullible and everything she looks for in marks during jobs like these, eyes she was trained for so many rigorous years to look for. Eyes she refuses to pity. Eyes she cannot ever get out of her head. Eyes like hers. 

Renny breaks her gaze, enters the train, doesn’t look back, and almost manages to convince herself that guilt has  _ nothing _ to do with it. 

* * *

“ _ Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt. _ ”   
-Plautus


	6. Pain (Khalida)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hurts. It always hurts.   
> \---  
> Khalida is my fallen aasimar death cleric/eldritch knight fighter. Her divinity has been "warped" so to speak by her tribe for various reasons, namely her role in a prophecy that they believed she should not have had as she is a woman. Hence, using her Necrotic Shroud as she did for this blurb causes her immense pain, as does using any of her cleric spells. This whole thing is 500 words of pure drabble, but it was fun to write.

“ _ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain larks you, but too deep to see. _ ”

-Margaret Atwood

* * *

**It hurts.** It always does, skin tearing, bones forming and flesh dying in one, power burning, coursing,  _ rotting _ through her. Something in the core of her next to the emptied well from which she draws her magic aches and sputters as it tries to reach out for  _ something _ but can’t quite make it. The attempt fumbles, threads of intangibility grasping tight around the abyss and refusing to let go. The agony is clarity in a way she can’t describe, similar yet worse than the misery of her magic and less controlled in the same breath. A thrum of pain explodes behind her eyes, and she knows what that means, tries to reign it in. But she can’t.  _ This _ is instinct, and Khalida has never held much control over that sort of thing. 

Tennetty, Yuvus, and (she winces) Victor all move to scramble out of the hut once the effects ensnare them. She can practically taste the fear in the room, but them being gone feels  _ safe _ \--she just wanted the words to stop. The jokes, the teasing, the attacks. They were just words, but they’ve been “just words” before, and that never lasts long. Khalida remembers the look about Al’umu, or lack thereof, as she raised the dagger over a child years ago after  _ words _ had convinced her. It would have been a mercy killing, Khalida knows this now, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

Erich, unphased, gives her a sour glare as he just manages to catch Victor (poor, sweet, brave Victor so undone).  _ Pain _ , so much pain, agony, creeping anguish, acrimonious misery. The pain does not tune out his words. She wishes it did. 

“Real big,” he hisses at her, motioning to her form now made more imposing by skeletal wings dug into the dirt below. She feels herself falter, takes a small step back in shock, though she can’t say she wasn’t expecting anger at some point. She tenses, waiting for the dagger. Waiting for the inevitable. “ _ Real scary _ , good job. You scared everyone. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” The taste of his magic, and he blinks out of existence with a spell, taking Victor with him. 

The words sting in a way only an unintended echo can. She freezes, barely noticing them leave.  _ Healers do not frighten, Khalida _ , numerous voices all saying the same thing, yet sets of eyes all show fear to look at her. Another separate voice, condescending, disappointed, and baritone rebuke all in one:  _ I hope you are proud,  _ alsghyr _.  _

_ I hope you’re proud of yourself _ . 

She is not. 

* * *

“ _ I tried my hardest to be free, _

_ but I was trapped by my anxiety. _

_ Now back into the fold. _

_ Now back into the fight, _

_ chasing demons from their hideouts, _

_ cast the mountains to the light. _ ”

-The Amity Affliction,  _ Skeletons _


	7. Family (Kai & Lucian Armis)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.  
> \---  
> Kai is a changeling who was "adopted" into the Armis family by its matriarch, Luirlan, under the condition that they essentially replace Luirlan's nonverbal autistic daughter, Veronica. Veronica's twin, Lucian, knows something's up right away. Later on, the true plans to use Kai to secure an aliance and then kill her off is revealed, and Lucian helps Kai escape as he has come to care for them as Kai and as his sibling in their own right. However, that is years from this. This is the Wildemount campaign that took over after the TPK in our previous Tal'Dorei campaign (the one with Chrys). So many shenannigans.

* * *

“ _In truth a family is what you make it._ ”

-Marge Kennedy

* * *

**“So, who are you?”** They— _she_ —peak their— _her_ —head around to curiously peer at the source of the voice cutting through the silence of the den with no less befuddlement than is truly befitting the situation. Or at least they— _she_ , dammit!—thinks it is enough befuddlement. Perhaps there needs to be more of a furrow to _her_ brow? Yes, that’s it. She ensures this new face of hers screws up in a truly confounded expression and hopes it isn’t too much. 

“Lucian, you know well who I am.” The boy is her age, ostensibly also her mirror save for being male. Half elf, poison-green eyes, stark red hair, fair skin, around six years and seven months old if the date given to her by Mother was correct, which she does not doubt it is. Why would the woman get her children’s birthdate wrong, after all? She imagines that would be a hard thing to forget. Sara never forgot the date she found Kai, after all, and Sara was a _very_ old woman. Old people forget _everything_. Why would a birthday be any different to a Found Day? 

Then again, what does she know? She’s just an orphan from the streets.

The boy, Lucian, shakes his head, sending well-groomed strands of fire in every direction. Mother didn’t seem too fond of his propensity for longer hair, and while he doesn’t appear the type to outright disobey the woman, he also doesn’t appear the type to _not_ push the boundaries of what is acceptable for as long as he can possibly get away with it. “No, I know who you _look_ like. But you can’t be Veronica, she’s mute. You’re talking.” 

She purses her lips. “Does it really matter?” He tilts his head curiously in response. 

“It does to me.” 

And she blinks, not entirely used to this but undecided on if that is a bad thing. “You have your sister back. You shouldn’t care about the _why_ or the _who_.” In her measly few years of experience, also known as the one time she accidentally stole the face of a recently dead person and then ran into their family, no one is ever too picky on the _how_ , _why_ , or even the _who_ and _what_ when the miracle in question benefits them.

“But I’ve never had a sister,” Lucian shrugs. “Not really, so you're wrong to say I've got her back if I never had her in the first place. The only reason I know that’s who you look like is because you look like me.” 

At this, the confused look returns, but it is not forced like before. No, this confusion is quite genuine. “What do you mean you don’t have a sister? I saw her.” Instantly, her hands slap across her mouth a second too late, poison eyes blown wide at her clear blunder. It only took her thirty minutes to say something she was expressly told not to say. She waits, listening for Mother to storm back into the room and drag her out by new pointed ears, but the still-foreign scolding never comes. Just a curious gaze the same shade as the one she assumes blinks back at her from the other sofa, unflinching as if the words were not a shock. In truth, they probably were not. He seems to already have some inkling she is not the mask she wears. 

“I haven’t seen her in years. I know Mother and Father were looking for someone to fix her before I could see her again. But no one’s been able to get her to speak before. Just scream sometimes.” 

“How do you know they didn’t finally get someone to make me talk, hm?” 

Lucian raises a brow at her in a perfect mimic of his mother, much to her amusement. “You just said you’ve seen _her_.”

She huffs, crossing her arms petulantly as the clumsy first attempt at embroidering (a _ladylike skill_ , according to Mother, one she has to learn now) falls forgotten in her lap. “I can look in a mirror, the same as anyone.” 

“Maybe,” he scoffs. “But why would you say it like that? That makes no sense!” 

“It makes _perfect_ sense.” 

“Does not!”

“Does, to!”

“Does not!”

“It _does, to_ , you...you...you _carrot_!” huffs the girl, the fold of her arms across her front only getting tighter in her irritation. It is an irritation only fueled by the mischievous sparkle in Lucian’s eyes, the slight grin on his face. He is picking on her, and he is enjoying it. She, however, is _not_ so amused, and glares harshly at her _brother_ instead. 

He snickers, pointing at her hair. “If I’m a carrot, then you are, too. We look the same.” She flushes in a mix of anger and embarrassment, fists balling up where her hands are stuffed into her elbows as if that will keep her from leaping the measly five feet to tackle him into the unlit fireplace next to the sofas. She won’t actually do it, she knows. Everything in this room is too expensive should she break anything, never mind what would happen if she hurt the Armis heir. Masquerading as her child or not, Luirlan will _kill_ her, undoubtedly. 

Though...that doesn’t mean she can’t prove a point. He already knows something is wrong, right? Taking a few furtive glances around the room, just to make sure there are no prying eyes she does not want to see, the girl turns back to Lucian and smirks to match him. It seems to take him a bit aback, if the confused blink is anything to go by, but if he thought she was going to sit back and take his teasing, he has another thing coming. 

“Yeah, I look like you now, but what if I...did this?” And with a mere thought, black begins to bleed into the red of her hair as if someone poured fresh ink atop her head, dripping down, down, down until the strands are dark as a raven’s wing. 

It gets the silent reaction she is hoping for. 

Yet...she can’t help but feel like she’s made another mistake as Lucian’s eyes go comically wide and his jaw slack. Seconds tick by, merely clicks from the too-ornate clock face in the decorated corner, but it is enough to spark the dregs of familiarity. Not the fuzzy, bittersweet nostalgia-and-smiles kind she gets thinking of Sara and fleeting moments of almost matronly kindness—no, this is the kind of familiarity she finds she can do without. The kind that fills her stomach with heavy knots, dread and anticipation, memories of jeers, knives, the occasional rock and cries of monster, ghost, and—

“That is _so cool!_ ” 

She blinks through a flinch. 

“...I’m sorry, what?” 

Lucian is staring at her, but where she expected fear—maybe disgust?—there is nothing but awe, fascination, and, dare she say, admiration. Children her age are not beholden to the same prejudices as grownups, at least not always, but the line is usually drawn at her freakish... _weirdness_. 

This half-elf, though, doesn’t seem to care. Neither did his parents, come to think of it. 

What is _wrong_ with this family??

“How did you _do_ that?!” he asks, the gears in his head clearly turning a mile a minute, and she swears she can see them through the glint in his eye. 

She flounders a moment. Is this how a fish out of water feels? She doesn’t like it. “I...don’t know. I just can?” 

It’s not much of an answer and he seems taken aback, though not dissuaded. “No way, there’s got to be a trick to it! Can you go back to red?” A shrug, and her hair bleeds into flame before either can blink. If anything, this just encourages his questioning, and she only feels _confused_. 

“What about blonde? Oh! No! Green! Can you change your eye color, too? That would be so awesome!” He’s practically bouncing in his seat and showing none of the restraint that ought to be expected of a noble heir. If Mother could see him, she’s sure his ear would be pulled, and she doesn’t even want to imagine the scolding purely out of sympathy. 

“Um…” Gods, where to even start? She’s usually been chased off by now. “Yes, yes, and yes? I just think it and...bam! New face. It’s not _that_ cool.” 

“You can just...be someone else by _thinking_ it?” She nods, not quite trusting her voice more than she already has. It’s doing that weird crackly thing again. Why in the world would she want to _cry_ right now? Must be the mask. 

Years later, she’ll know better than to go blaming a face for her own emotions, but to a six-ish year old, it makes sense. 

“I don’t know how I do it though.” He ignores her. 

Lucian gestures wildly, almost flinging his long-abandoned book on the carpet in the process. “How is this _not_ awesome?” She can think of several reasons, almost all of them actually people. But somehow, Lucian’s naivete is...refreshing? Yes, refreshing. 

It’s been a good few years since someone hasn’t been afraid of her (Mother and Father are both wary—she’s a child, not stupid). Kind old eyes, and a stern yet gentle ruffle of disguised hair flits through her memory, vague but still clinging to whatever threads still remain. 

“Okay,” she quietly admits, deciding to humor this bright-eyed boy who _hasn’t_ thrown anything at her or called her monster or freak or ghost or— Well, honestly, the list is endless. “Okay. You’re right, it _is_ kinda cool.” 

Then, he does the curious head-tilt again, the one she’s quickly coming to realize means he’s scrutinizing something. Offhand, she also notices his tendency to tap at his knee while he thinks. “You never answered me, though. Who are you?” And she’s befuddled again for a moment because he still wants to know?

A slow, lazy grin crawls across her new face. The confusion is only momentary because of _course_ he still wants to know. Another scrawled note is added to the file in her head labelled _Lucian Armis_ , and it reads “ **tenacious** ” in bold letters second only to “ **stubborn** ” and “ **too inquisitive for his own good** ”. 

“I’m your sister, Luci.” His face instantly sours just as she hoped it would, and she allows herself the freedom of a giggle. 

“Do _not_ call me that.” 

Feeling oddly carefree, she shrugs. “Too late.” 

Newly-dubbed Luci throws his hands up, as close to pouting as she thinks the dignified heir to a noble fortune can be, and grouses, “Fine, whatever—nice try! What’s your name?” 

The girl narrows stolen eyes, trying to mimic his earlier intensity but probably failing. Some things are just intrinsic to the individual, and it seems there are more differences between twins than she thought. 

“I’ll tell you if you let me call you Luci.” She’s clearly not expecting him to agree. He surprises her again, nonetheless.

“Fine!” he barks, looking equal parts eager, desperate, and pained. She thinks that may have something to do with why she doesn’t just hiss out a sarcastic ploy about her name being _Veronica_ (kinda true) or any other half-cocked snipe she can think of instead of the full truth. Because at the heart of it, just like her face, _Veronica_ isn’t really her name. Just like Lucian isn’t really her brother, but, well, it’s nice to pretend, isn’t it? 

At least, that’s what she tells herself as she leans across the small distance between the sofas to offer him a hand, dropping the mask for the first time in weeks to expose papery skin, white irises, and inhuman pink hair brazenly to this room which, in this moment, feels as though it might as well be all of Exandria. 

“Hi Luci,” they smile broadly, crinkling black-rimmed filmy eyes. “I’m Kai. It’s nice to meet you.” 

* * *

“ _I am what survives of me._ ”

-Erik Erikson

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> ~Sneak


End file.
